What Could Happen?

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Why I hate television

I don't, in fact, hate television. How can I hate the medium that brought us Bea Arthur, Joss Whedon, Mighty Mouse, Jason Bateman, Neil Patrick Harris, the (original) Muppets and Tony Soprano? I cannot. BUT.

This thing on NBC News at 11 last week reminded me about the asinine evil that is so much of TV production. A feature on a wonderful photographer who appreciates and captures the individual beauty in women became, in the hands of hack producers, a condescending, vapid, and ultimately sort of semi-deliberately humiliating puff piece on "look how even fat girls can be made (sort of) hot!" Which is NOT what Isis is about, and NOT how I particularly wanted to be depicted in every taxi in NYC. But I should have known. It is, after all, TV. How many TV interviewers have asked me how much weight I gained during the J&J Project? How many of them have I sat opposite from and seen clearly that they'd never even cracked the book open?

But it's not just vapidity and laziness. It's a sort of built-in bent toward condescension and humiliation of women. And the worst thing is, I think some women in the media are more guilty of this than anyone else. Because of the risk of being run out of town on a rail, I'll not name a certain cabal of powerful, well-spoken women in print journalism who write so stylishly that their gleeful brand of neo-misogyny - or maybe it's just smugness - seems to float over people's heads. But I get angry in the same way, reading them.

I am so looking forward to the release of the J&J movie, and of "Cleaving" a few months after that. It's very exciting. What I'm not looking forward to is the next round of questions about my weight and what my VERY favorite recipe in MtAoFC is.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

I keep saying I'll be back and then I keep disappearing again.

Must be the excess testosterone.

Anyway, a couple of events:

1) The "Julie & Julia" trailer gets released tomorrow. Once I know where it can be viewed online I'll let you know. I've seen the movie, and the trailer. It looks like a trailer for a Nora Ephron movie, whatever that means to you.

2) Also tomorrow - I'm going to be on the New York NBC News at 11 in all my zaftig, be-skivvied glory. And after that? In every taxi cab in New York. Fun stuff.

UPDATE: Haven't found the trailer yet, but here's the excruciating spot on NBC. I got tons of airtime, presumably because I'm fat. Which I'm aware of. Any commenters who wish to make merry with the vast white expanse of corseted me will be firebombed. And I know how to make explosives with beef suet, so don't test me.

UPDATE II: I've been misinformed. Trailer isn't coming out until May. Sorry about that - for now only fat writers, no gorgeous accomplished actors.....